Nightmare Interrupted
by drmariskahargitay
Summary: Olivia and the SVU team are working a particularly hard case. When she finally gets home, there is a knock on her door in the middle of the night, leaving her to believe the worst.
1. Chapter 1

Olivia Benson, lieutenant of Manhattans Special Victims Unit at the 1-6, walked purposefully into her, at the moment very cluttered, office and quickly shut the door behind her while trying to control her rigid breathing. She brought a shaky, manicured hand to her head and ran her long fingers through her delicate, wavy, milk chocolate brown locks and sighed when more than a couple of strands came out clinging onto her fingers.

Walking over to her desk, her eyes filled with tears for the victim of their latest case, Mary Winters, a forty-seven year old woman whose only joys in her life consisted of her two children and her job. Although Olivia didn't know Mary and would never have the chance to, she felt like they would have gotten along great. Olivia could relate to her, possibly more than anyone else in the world. She had no family, like Olivia. She adopted her kids, like Olivia. She had married the job, like Olivia.

The team caught the case two nights ago, they worked well through the night and took turns sleeping a few hours in the cribs. When it was Olivia's turn to catch some shut eye, she walked into the cribs and her eyes quickly fell on the one in the far corner, the one that was somewhat hidden by the other bunks. The one that was theirs.

She walked slowly over to it, ran her hands over the cold metal of the frame and touched the rough blanket. She knew that if she brought it to her face, there was a chance it would still smell like him. And she knew if she picked it up and turned it over, their would be a red stain from the time she was drinking cranberry juice and he made her laugh so hard it came pouring out of her nose and she spilled what was left in the bottle laying on her lap. She knew if she laid down, there would be an indent of his body on the left side of the small mattress and an indent of hers on the right side.

Olivia also knew that if she stayed in this room — by this bed that was bringing her back to a place from her past, that she wasn't quite yet ready to remember — for even one more minute, she would have a breakdown. And, right now, on top of everything, she didn't need a breakdown, she needed sleep. Olivia let her fingers linger on the cold steel for another second before turning on her heel and walking out of the room as her eyes filled with tears. The couch in her office would have to due for the night.

Last night, she walked in through her apartment door way past midnight, too late to tuck Noah into bed so she sat in his room and watched him sleep, planted light kisses on his face, ran her fingers through his hair. She woke up five hours later as the first hint of sunlight was starting to stream though his bedroom window. Her whole body ached as she stood up from the carpeted floor, but she'd never felt more rested. She placed a kiss on her sons still sleeping cheek and quietly closed his door behind her.

Lucy was already in the living room when Olivia emerged from her bedroom half an hour later after taking a shower and blow drying her hair, not bothering to put much makeup on. Just a dab of concealer under her eyes, to hide the dark bags that had been forming since her first day at SVU, and some mascara.

"Lucy, thank you for being here on your day off," Olivia thanked the young girl.

"It's no problem, Liv. There's no place I'd rather be," Lucy said, giving her a small smile.

"I'll try to be home as early as I can tonight, thank you again," and with that, Olivia was out the door, and into the cold winter air of New York.

"Fuck," Olivia muttered to herself, her head in her hands, as she closed the interrogation room door behind her. Three hours. Three hours she had been questioning him and he didn't slip once. She knew this guy was guilty. She could feel it in her bones, but he was too smart, he wouldn't budge. Mary's therapist. They found his address in her belongings and she had been seeing him every Tuesday for the last eight years, never missed an appointment, so why hadn't he called to check on her when she missed yesterdays session?

"What are you doing?" Carisi asked.

"We have nothing solid to hold him on, we have to let him go," Olivia said regretfully.

"Sure thing, Lieu," he called after her, but she was already gone, disappeared into her office. As soon as the door latched, she fell against it, letting it hold her up. A tear fell down her cheek but she quickly swiped it away.

As a distraction, Olivia buried herself in unfinished paperwork that she'd been putting off for as long as she could. She glanced at her clock, 1:45 am, shit, another night she missed tucking Noah in.

Olivia finished up her paperwork and decided it was time to go home, there was nothing left to do tonight, and they all needed sleep. They all needed a few hours alone or with their families. They all needed to remember there was still good in the world. She told the team to go home and they'd pick back up in the morning.

Olivia took a cab home, not trusting herself to drive the short distance with how worn out she was. Her bones ached, her body ached, it was like the exhaustion she felt was worse than anything she had ever experienced.

It was well after two in the morning when she stepped off her elevator and unlocked her apartment door. The noise of the door opening woke Lucy who was asleep on the couch.

"Liv," she greeted sleepily, "you're home," smiled the girl.

"Finally," Olivia said, returning her smile. "Thank you again, Lucy. Go get some sleep, I'll see you in the morning," Olivia told her, shutting the door behind Lucy and locking it.

Olivia was just walking out of Noah's room, after putting an extra blanket on him and giving him a kiss, when she heard a soft knock on the door.

Olivia assumed it was Lucy, who often forgets her belongings. She went to the door and looked through the peep-hole. She quickly opened the door and took in the figure before her, one she was not expecting to see.

"Melinda, whats wrong?" Olivia asked, the fear clinging to her voice.


	2. Chapter 2

"Liv," Melinda said with a shaky voice, not the calm and confident one she was used to hearing, her face was pale and sweaty, her eyes sunken in. Olivia could tell the medical examiner was barley holding herself together. "Can I come in?"

Olivia slightly nodded her head and moved out of the way for Melinda to come inside. The woman fidgeted with her coat and her hair, she paced slightly in Olivia's living room.

"Melinda, whats the matter?" Olivia asked, her voice hardly above a whisper, concerned for her friend. Melinda placed a hand on her shoulder and Melinda turned her head to look into Olivia's eyes.

"Liv, sit down, please," Melinda muttered and licked her lips, she was trying to prepare herself to say the words she desperately didn't want to, but needed to. Olivia needed to know.

Olivia looked at her, looked at the way her eyes looked broken, looked lifeless, looked at how she had no color in her face, looked at the tears welling up in her eyes. She nodded slightly and took a seat in the chair behind her.

"Liv," Melinda began, looking from her eyes down to her shoes, not knowing what to say, how to begin, not knowing how to rip this woman heart from her chest without causing too much damage.

"Spit it out, Mel, you're scaring me," Olivia whispered, taking the woman's hands in hers and giving them a small squeeze of encouragement. Melinda let out a sad, deep sigh and Olivia knew this was the point of no return. Whatever news Melinda had come to deliver, was about to change her life.

"Okay, a body came into the morgue today, a murder, and I," Melinda began and Olivia had already checked out, she dropped Melinda's hands and felt the air force its self out of her lungs, they felt like they were on fire. She felt her finger tips, her palms, her arms, her legs, her whole body going numb slowly at first then fast. Her ears were ringing, a terribly loud siren like wale. Her mouth was more dry than the time she smoked a joint in high school after the homecoming dance. Her heart was beating so fast she was afraid it might burst out of her chest, and she hadny taken a breath yet but all of this were thoughts in the back of her head. Thoughts that she could care less about, the only thing that was running through her mind was his name.

Olivia didn't register Melinda kneeling in front of her, her hands on both of Olivia's shoulders. Olivia couldn't focus, her vision was blurry, her hands were shaking. All she could hear was his name in her head.

"Liv, Liv," she faintly heard being called to her from a distance, she tried to turn her head towards the sound, tried to bring herself back to reality but she knew that would make this all too real. She just wanted to stay here for a few seconds longer, where her mind replayed the last time they woke up together and made breakfast, or the last drunken night they had, or the last kiss he gave her.

 _Wake up, Olivia_ , her brain was screaming to her, as much as she loved her memories of him, they were hurting her more. This nightmare was hurting her. She needed to wake up. She closed her eyes and snapped them open. Melinda was still there, tears running down her cheeks, Olivia's hands were still shaking but this time she could focus on the woman before her. She quickly stood up and began looking for her coat.

"Take me to him, I need you to take me to him, please. I need to see him, I need to be with him, I need to get him to wake up and I need to wake up and we will be out of this nightmare. Take me to him, Melinda, take me to him," Olivia's shoulders were shaking with sobs as she pleaded with Melinda to take her to see the man lying on the concrete slab in the morgue.

"We can't leave Noah," Melinda reasoned with her.

"I'll call Lucy, she just left before you got here. I need to see him."

Lucy arrived back to the apartment in record time, quietly running through the door, not sure what exactly was going on. All she knew was from her very brief conversation on the phone with ME Warner, asking her to please come back because her and Olivia had a emergency that they needed to deal with and Lucy without question said she would be back in ten minutes.

"Is everything okay?" Lucy asked when she got one look at Olivia, sitting on the couch, already dressed to go outside, her head in her hands and her shoulders shaking with silent sobs.

"No, and I'm not sure it will be," Melinda muttered, more to herself than to Lucy but the girl heard her and her heart was breaking for the woman on the couch.

Lucy had known Olivia for a few years now and the woman hadn't had it easy. After everything that has happened to her, Lucy was surprised she still had that light in her eyes. She smiled slightly, knowing the reason Olivia was going to be okay was because of Noah. He would get her through this, whatever this was. He was her light.

Melinda closed the door of the apartment behind her and she helped Olivia walk down the hallway, to the elevator, and out of her building. She buckled Olivia into the front seat of her car and climbed into the driver seat. She started the ignition and backed out of her parking spot. She caught a glimpse of the woman in her passenger seat and felt her heart break more than it already was. Melinda saw it everyday in victims families faces, hope. Olivia had hope that the person in the morgue was someone else, some terrible mistake. She was holding onto that, and Melinda felt like she was going to throw up. She sucked in a deep breath and continued driving.

Olivia got out of the car and practically sprinted to the doors, she ripped them open and continued running until she reached the door marked Morgue. She flung that door open, leaving Melinda in the dust and she began to search for him.

Melinda heard Olivia before she saw her, heard her screams and pleas, heard her emptying her stomach, heard her dry heaving. Melinda rounded the corner and the sight before her was one she was sure would haunt her until the day she died.

Olivia Benson, on her knees, her vomit to her right, mascara running down her face, her shirt wet with tears, her hands on his face, her pleading with God to bring back the only man she ever had loved.


	3. Chapter 3

Olivia felt the world around her stop, as she clung to the lifeless body in front of her. She felt her vision go spotty, and felt that familiar ringing in her ears, she felt her entire body lose feeling, and she thought she might lose consciousness so she held tighter onto the metal frame and deepened her breathing. Olivia didn't even know she had started crying until a tear hit his face.

"Elliot, I need you to say something, I need to hear your voice, I need you to wake up, baby," Olivia whispered into his cold skin, her tears continuing to fall onto him. Olivia felt all the memories coming back, the ones she tried to keep in the past, the ones that made her feel like the worst woman in the world and the luckiest at the same time, the ones that no one in this world knew except her and the man before her.

It had been over six years since she held this man in her arms, since she pressed her lips to his, since they were partners, and six years since she last had woken up with his arms around her.

"Elliot, you're not gone, I know you're not. You are the man who is going to live forever' Olivia sobbed, not allowing herself to grasp onto the reality of the situation. Her shoulders shaking and her hair clinging to her face where her tears had been, she was no longer aware of the other woman in the room, and frankly she didn't care.

"El, I am not ready for you to go. I wasn't ready six years ago when you left, and I know now how selfish that was. But, goddammit, I needed you. I still need you, I will never stop needing you," she could hardly get out the words, her lungs were burning, and she was convinced she was choking on her broken heart.

"Whenever you wore that baseball cap, I always made fun of you, I really hated it at first, the way it made you look like a child. But that grin you always gave me, it made me appreciate that hat because of the work we do. I didn't get to see that grin often, usually only when we were alone. The hate gave you that boyish grin and El, I keep a Polaroid of you, in a white tee shirt, baseball cap, and that huge childish grin, I keep it on the stand next to my bed, and now," she smiled, her voice cracking a little, "it's next to a photo of my son, Noah."

"Oh, Elliot, you were always my best friend, always, even when we were more. What a perfect triangle we had going on for that little bit, partner, best friend, lover. You knew everything about me, and I knew everything about you, even the things we both wanted to forget. I always thought it was bullshit, you know, giving that much of yourself to another person, having no secrets, it was like being completely naked next to a person dressed for a snow storm. But with you it wasn't anything like that, it wasn't scary, it was—" Olivia felt like she had been kicked in the gut, all of these emotions spilling out of her, all the words spilling out of her that she couldn't find the courage to tell him when he was alive, words shed never said out loud to anyone before, it was exactly like being kicked in the stomach.

"Elliot, I need you to wake up, I can not do this life without you. The last few years without you, thats exactly what they have been. Until Noah came into my life, I was surrounded by darkness. There were a few nights I bought bottles of vodka and let them stare at me until I would open them and drink some, drink just enough to dial your number, but I never pressed the call button. I would just cry and dump the vodka down the sink. And then, I got the biggest blessing I could ever had asked for, and he is the love of my life, but Elliot, you are my soul mate and I need you," she whispered, her face inches from his. She closed her eyes and thought back to the last time she was this close to him.

It was a lazy Saturday morning that they both had off, he had stayed the night before. It was nothing fancy, just a baseball game on her TV and a few beers, the night ended in her bed, a sheet around them and their skin glistening with sweat.

Olivia had woke to an empty bed and she instantly feared that he left without saying goodbye, but she heard him in the kitchen and her mind eased. Olivia got out of bed and threw on his old NYPD tee shirt and walked out of her bedroom.

"El, what are you doing?" she called out to him with a smile.

"I'm just cooking breakfast," he answered, and she rounded the corner and the sight before her made her breath catch in her lungs. Elliot Stabler, shirtless, with a spatula in his hand, making them breakfast.

"Oh, this is a nice sight to wake up to," Olivia said, coming up behind him and linking her arms around him placing small kisses on his back.

"Thats what I say every morning with you, Liv," he replied, making her blush.

Nothing had been memorable about the day, no fighting, nothing to make it stick out, other than it was the perfect day and it was the last Saturday they spent together. The last bit of alone time the had with each other. The last time he stood shirtless in her kitchen, last time they had made love. It was also the last time she had seen him in a baseball cap with that grin on his face, and now she wished more than anything she had taken a moment to snap a photo.

Olivia looked down at the man before her and he looked smaller now, on the concrete slab, she put her head in her hands and closed her eyes.

"Elliot Stabler, I swear, if you don't wake up, I don't even know what I'll do. I have never imagined a life without you because from the moment I laid my eyes on you, you have have been my world, my life, my everything. And, now I have that little boy who needs to know the man who made his mother so happy. The only man I had ever loved except him," her voice caught in her throat and she knew she had to tell him everything on her mind while he was in front of her, this was her last chance. Their last private moments.

"I wonder about you when I wake up and before I go to sleep, I imagine what life would be like if God were on our side and I got to take you home every night after work and make love to you like there was no tomorrow. I imagine us fighting like we used to, and you storming out and me crying, but we always found a way to fix it. I imagine us with your children and my son. I even have named our own children a hundred times over in my head. I dream of you every night. I have a picture of you next to my bed and its the most beautiful picture I have ever seen even though its been folded and the edges are starting to whither," she stopped for a moment, realizing she had repeated herself and she looked at her hand in his and wished things could be different.

"Fuck, you sonofabitch," she mumbled, the tears burning her eyes. She didn't even know if Melinda was in the room anymore, she hadn't made any noise this whole time. She thought of what could be happening now in an alternate universe, her being slightly too buzzed and laying draped across him on the couch, after the hard case she had worked today, her eyes struggling to stay open, Elliot's hand running through her hair, her hand on his leg. The movie not getting any attention because she had already dozed off and Elliot was too preoccupied with how close Olivia was to him and too concentrated on not moving because he didn't want to disturb her. He would wait a few more minutes to grab the blanket on the couch behind his head and drape it over her as he finished his beer, watching her sleep peacefully as he had many, many nights before. Oh, how she wished this night could have ended like that, instead of this. At the morgue, the man she loved on a concrete slab in front of her, and there was nothing she could do except say her peace and her goodbye.

"El, wake up," she cried, "please, babe," she paused, "you have no idea how many times I've called you that while you were sleeping. Wishing I had the courage to call you that when you were conscious, but what we were doing was wrong, you weren't mine to call babe. And there was one time, when you kissed me while you were so drunk, it was the most sloppy, most perfect first kiss shared between two drunk people on our walk home from the bar. I wasn't sure if you'd remember it in the morning because we both had entirely too much tequila but I guess I can just hold my liquor better," she said grinning lightly with a genuine laugh.

"I never told you about the kiss because I knew it was just the alcohol lowering you inhibitions and you would never have done it sober— little did I know at the time, that was the start of our short lived life as lovers— but I'm telling you now, even though you cant hear me. I just need to get all of this off my chest," Olivia stopped to take a breath, realizing tears were something she might have to get used to for the rest of her days, because without Elliot was a heartbreak so deep, so shattering, she was sure she would never recover.


End file.
